


You Are My History

by Evanaissante



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arthur Knows About Merlin's Magic, Arthur Pendragon Returns, Awesome Morgana, Everything Hurts, Fluff and Angst, Gwaine Being Gwaine, Immortal Merlin, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, M/M, Modern Era, Mordred is a teenager, Past Gwen/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Reincarnation, Sibling Bonding, The Author Regrets Everything, because we all need more Pendragon sibling bonding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-04-29 02:56:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14463492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evanaissante/pseuds/Evanaissante
Summary: The gust of wind became a cyclone and in the middle of it rose a man with the clearest eyes and hair like wheat, the same man he had drawn in his journal for the past two thousand years, the man he had once sworn to protect.Merlin's voice broke as he jumped into the water to rescue the body of his fallen king from certain death by drowning, "Arthur!" He cried out and finally, his waiting was over.__________________Arthur comes back to life in the twenty-first century, but he brings enemies with him. As always, Merlin is here to fix everything.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Just a quick word to make a few things clear.  
> \- This story is pretty much a "How can I soothe the pain that Arthur's death brought me" fic where I imagine Arthur's return and the obvious chaos that would bring.  
> \- This fic is my first Merlin fic in English and, as English is not my first language, there might be a few mistakes here and there, if you see any, feel free to tell me.  
> \- The Mature rating doesn't apply until certain chapters, where I will warn you of what's to come, but don't worry, there won't be anything too bloody, just maybe some Merlin and Arthur action...  
> That's all I had to say! Enjoy!

Merlin had always been set on remembering everything that made Arthur who he was. From the light colour of every strand of hair, to the way the blue of his eyes became clearer with age. He could not leave behind how his king was never able to sing, but how his voice always soothed Merlin's every ache. He could not consign to oblivion any of what had made Arthur a man, a king, but most importantly, his friend.

With the years that passed, Merlin couldn't possibly remember everything naturally. He was maybe the strongest warlock the world had ever seen, but he was also a man and human beings have the terrible habit of being flawed. Which is why, twenty-three years after Arthur's death, he bought a journal from a sleazy merchant on the road to Mercia. The journal, the  _diary_ really, had a red leather cover with a beautiful embroid dragon on the front, it screamed  _Pendragon_ and Merlin, in his great grief that only seemed to accentuate with time, could not stay deaf to such a call.

His decision to leave Camelot, leather diary in his bag and old neckerchief around his throat, was not only born from sorrow and lamentation. Arthur was dead, he couldn't change that now, never could on his own, but the rest of his friends were still alive, apart from Gwaine and oh how that had left him in tears. And while, yes, he could have stayed at Guinevere's side until her last breath, the castle felt too empty, too cold now that his king wasn't there to order him around and that Gaius had died of the one thing Merlin could never cure,  _old age._

He simply had no place in this life anymore, no meaning, he couldn't just mourn Arthur forever in the hope that his tears would bring him back sooner. He wasn't that man, never had been, now that Arthur was gone, he had to move on, had to find a new fight until his friend came back to life. He had grieved for over two decades, it was time now to search for a new cause and lead a new existence. Of course, Gwen hadn't been pleased. She obviously expected him to delay his new adventure to stay with her, which was reasonable, but so out of character for him.

She had aged well, Guinevere, her skin hadn't cracked yet and her hair hadn't whitened too much. The only proof of time passing was the crevices under her eyes, the ones caused more by tears and not by the years, the ones that were very similar to Merlin's own. Gwen didn't wear her wedding ring on her finger anymore, but around a leather lace that also bore Arthur's signet ring, keeping the marks of their love close to her heart. Merlin would never admit it, mainly because he simply couldn't put that particular feeling into words, but he sometimes stared at the rings with envy. Guinevere, who had been loved by Arthur and who had loved him in return, possessed a material memory of her king. She could place the signet ring on her own finger and pretend Arthur was still here, she could grief him openly for the rest of time without anyone seeing it as dramatic.

"Do you wish to leave me this badly?" She had asked him, her eyes tired. "I believed us friends, Merlin."

"And you are my dearest friend, Guinevere." He replied, forgetting about her royal position as he took her left hand in his, caressing the knuckles with affection. "But I have no place here anymore. I trained another physician for you, for Camelot. You won't have to look for another one when I leave."

Gwen smiled, but it was a sad performance. "But for another friend? Must I look through all the kingdom to find someone as loyal and kind as you?"

Merlin was left speechless for a second, he knew how close he had grown to Gwen in the last years, going back to the same friendship they once had, before her coronation. But, after the black cloud that Arthur's passing had caused, he hadn't believed truly that Guinevere had forgiven him. He hadn't forgiven himself yet, how could she have? His sole purpose had been to protect her husband and he had let the Once and Future King die on the muddy ground of a nearby lake, he didn't deserve this kind of love.

"I will always be your friend, for long as I breathe, I will be loyal to you and the throne." He breathed, feeling the taste of his promise set on his already bitter lips. He wasn't lying, he was and would always be her friend and the kingdom's servant, but he also knew that he would one day be the last one standing. The most loyal immortal servant of a fallen kingdom and a buried queen. That wasn't a very nice thought to have on an early morning.

Guinevere seemed to sense his melancholy because she pressed the most gentle kiss to his cheek and buried her head in his shoulder, wrapping him in a hug that left him close to tears. She was saying goodbye, they both were aware of it, and they also both knew that they would never see each other again. Not in this lifetime.

He caressed her hair, saying goodbye with all the fondness he could muster. He hoped his actions reflected how grateful he was to have had her with him, to have had her as a queen.

"If you must leave," She said, her tired eyes now turned humid, "Then promise me you will live for yourself. Don't immerse yourself in another fight, live your own life."

Merlin laughed, it wasn't a particularly happy laugh, but it was no longer as sad, "Do you wish me to start a family?" It was said as a joke, but Gwen didn't seem to find it very funny.

"You say it like it's an impossible possibility."

Merlin sighed, "It really is."

"Why? You're not as old as you would like to pass as, and anyone would be lucky to create a life with you." She replied.

He kept himself from hissing Arthur's name as proof that  _anyone_ had never been an option. He didn't want anyone, he hadn't wanted anyone in a long time. In the end, he only said "My family had once been here, in Camelot. I don't need another one."

Gwen seemed to understand his words, she turned pale. "Did you... Did he...?" Her wide eyes left no doubt in what she deduced.

"I did," Merlin stated, he would have once been mortified with his confession, he would have once guard it with his life. But it seemed so futile now after so many years had passed and so many secrets had been revealed. "But he loved you with all his heart, do not worry."

"I'm not worried," Gwen said and if she had been anyone else it would have sounded like a lie, but Guinevere was nothing if not honest, "I'm just so surprised, you never said anything."

"You loved him," Merlin answered, like that fact alone had been enough to restrain all his feelings, and it had been. "He loved you. There was no place for me in this story."

Gwen seemed taken aback, "Oh Merlin, all this time?"

"At first, I thought he was an arrogant arse." He smiled, thinking back on how Arthur had once thrown a bucket of water on his head like a child, "Then he disobeyed Uther's orders to save my life and I knew he was a better man than he let on."

"And when did you know you loved him?" Gwen asked, she didn't seem angry, she had a fond smile on her face.

"After he fought by my side in Ealdor," Merlin answered. "I knew I loved him then."

Gwen's smile turned cheerless, "And yet, you let me take away the man you loved away from you."

"He was never that far away and I was happy enough to serve him. It was my only way to stay close to him."

"You could have told me, Merlin, it wouldn't have changed a thing between you and I." Gwen said, grabbing his hands in hers. "How could I have blamed you for loving from the bottom of your heart?"

"I didn't want you to hate me, Guinevere." Merlin replied, "He was your husband."

"He was your king." Gwen counterparted. "And you ached for him."

"He was never mine to keep, he was yours since the moment you set eyes on him."

"Merlin," Guinevere started, she had a sunny smile on her face, long gone was the sad frown they had shared. "Arthur loved you too."

It was like thunder went through him with fury, leaving him scorched and trembling. His eyes went blind for just a moment, and he knew without checking that a vase had exploded with the force of his magic going unleashed. Gwen didn't react to the noise or the shards of pottery thrown on the floor, which said a lot about how far their friendship had gone.

"You don't mean that." Merlin exhaled, "Arthur was my friend, yes, but his feelings for me were no match to the intensity of mine."

Guinevere smiled softly, "Arthur didn't know how to correctly explain what he felt, but I understood it early on."

"When? When did you understand it?" Merlin asked, going out of breath.

Gwen sighed, "Do you remember the dinner you organised between he and I in the clearing? And don't try to say you had nothing to do with it, let's not kid ourselves in thinking Arthur was able of such a romantic gesture."

Merlin calmed his starved lungs before answering. "I remember."

Gwen nodded before continuing. "Our conversation turned to what he would have done if he hadn't been born a prince, he told me sometimes he dreamed of leaving his responsibilities and Camelot to become a farmer."

Merlin snorted, now entirely relaxed, "Arthur? A farmer?"

"I said the same thing." Gwen exclaimed. "But do you know what he told me? We were having this beautiful, intimate moment and instead of telling me he would take me with him, he told me he would ask you to go with him."

"He probably just wanted me to clean his boots." Merlin tried to joke.

Gwen rolled her eyes, "Or maybe, even then he only thought of you."

Her words stayed with Merlin for days, months, even years after he left Camelot. He tried to not let it go to his head, to not dream of what might have been if he had been brave enough to tell Arthur every truth he hid from him before his last breath. But his imagination was as wild as his magic and he sometimes woke up breathless, with the lingering, but fabricated, taste of Arthur's lips on his.

This went on for decades, he lived a simple life in Mercia, away from the political arguments childish kings created only because another had looked at their queen for too long. He spent his days writing in his journal, reading every book the world had to offer while teaching himself all the natural talents he once lacked. After the word of Queen Guinevere's death arrived, he locked himself away for years, he used his magic for everything, summoning food from the markets and books from royal libraries. Sometimes, he magically sent them back to their rightful owners, other times he kept them for his private collection.

He left his hovel the moment the books he stole stared to describe Camelot and its monarchs as legends. Times had changed, Camelot was now no longer a beautiful castle, but an old tale where stories such as magic, druids, fairies and trolls were nothing more than imagination. Arthur's face wasn't even the same in these myths, he somehow had brown eyes and dark long hair that matched his beard, Guinevere's skin was paler, her hair was fairer and if Merlin hadn't read her name at the bottom of the drawing he wouldn't have recognized her. The first few times adventures of the great Arthur Pendragon and his best knight Lancelot were sang by minstrels at Mercia's castle, where he sometimes spent his days changed as an old man, he would try to tell the naive bards that Arthur had never slain a dragon on his own, that Guinevere was not the daughter of a powerful foreign king and that Leon had been Arthur's first and most loyal knight. Weirdly, no one preferred his version of the story, but as always, people rarely liked the truth.

As decades passed, he stopped his defence of the truth, there was no point in protecting a myth that no one truly believed in, Arthur became a symbol, the embodiment of bravery and courage, but he was no longer a person. Soon enough, the stories of Camelot's king and knights became bedtime stories for children in need of adventure. The only legend prospered, the one thing people still believed in and still searched through quests and hunts, was Excalibur. The sword that Merlin had thrown had the bottom of a lake, the same one where Arthur had been laid to rest, was still envisioned as the most powerful weapon on Earth, both mercenaries and explorers left their town and families to find the legendary blade and pierce the secret it held.

Of course, none of them ever found it, mostly because Merlin took the time to create countless of riddles and tasks that would lead to nothing, but also because no one imagined the faith that Excalibur had suffered through. Who would throw a blade forged with Dragonfire away? Who would be stupid enough to leave that power in the deep water of a lake when they could keep said raw potential close to them? Merlin would, he was credulous enough to believe in the reincarnation of his king and too loyal to even think of lifting Arthur's sword.

Sometimes, when the longing was too painful and his mind was too loud, Merlin would leave the comfort of his hidden home to sit near the lake where he knew Freya kept Excalibur close to her heart. Maybe it was wishful thinking, or just the autumn leaves falling on the water's surface that let Merlin believe that he sometimes saw Freya at the bottom of the lake, surrounded by a blanket of alga and what looked like hair. He occasionally wondered if she still looked the same, if her skin still bore the scars the bounty hunter had left on her centuries ago, or if death had been kinder to her and had erased every blemish humanity had placed on her body.

He also wondered if she had aged at all, or if like him, magic conserved her appearance, but aged her mind far more than time ever would. He should have now looked more like the old man he had once transformed into and not like the twenty-six-year-old man he had once been. He should be dead, more than anything else, he should have died more than a century ago. He didn't belong in this world of technology and science, he was, more than certainly, the last living warlock on Earth and he should have passed away with druids of the old religion.

But here he was, a two thousand-year-old warlock in the body of a twenty-six years old, British pediatric intern working at Queen of Mercy's hospital. He had a job, a flat, a few friends that he had met during his hours of work, he even had a dog. He still thought of Arthur every day, but the world had changed, and he had to evolve with it. That's why he left the lake behind, promising himself to visit every month, but stopping his daily stops to preserve what was left of his mental health.

It was on a boring day of July that the soft tremors of forgotten powers came back to haunt him. He was working his shift, jumping from a twisted ankle to an outbreak of gastroenteritis and sharing his well-deserved lunch with his colleague, Cassandra.

Cassandra Gan, nicknamed Cass, was a petite Korean woman with chunky rimmed glasses and dark bowl cut and a fringe. Cassandra didn't remind Merlin of anyone he had ever known in a past life, which was why he openly welcomed her friendship, being with her didn't provoke unwanted memories and he found in her a trustworthy companion. She was also a filthy thief who ate all of his well earned M&Ms and who took more than "one sip" from his tea thermos.

"If you plan on stealing all my sweets, you could at least not be picky." He mumbled as Cassandra selected the blue chocolate and peanut balls before chucking them in her open mouth.

She grinned and pointed her piece of celery to his face with intent, "I need to eat at least half of your M&Ms, your sugar intake is way too high for your body weight."

"My sugar intake is perfect, thank you very much," he replied as he accepted her vegetable offering. "You're the one who absolutely wants a summer body, even though I keep telling you that diets are societal concepts."

Cass blinked a few times, then dipped right back in the open pack of chocolate to steal a few more, "You're a mystery, Merlin," She said, "Sometimes, you speak like an old man then you transform into a Tumblr Justice Warrior."

"Piss off," He snorted, taking a sip of his, now cold, Yorkshire tea. "You're the one who made a Hamilton poster for the reception room."

"All patients should be able to...  _Wait for it_." Cassandra sang, awfully off-key, "Hey, do you plan on visiting your mother any time soon?"

Of course, Merlin wasn't  _really_ visiting his mother, Hunith was long gone, dead from old age as well, but he had needed a lie that would cover his monthly disappearance, and his excuse just couldn't be  _I'm visiting the grave of the dead king of Camelot_ ,  _hoping he will return_. That would have just gotten him a direct trip to the third floor of the hospital, the mental illness centre.

"Yeah, this evening actually;" He hadn't really planned on going to the lake, but he now felt guilty that he hadn't been there in over a month and, even if the chances of Arthur coming back were slimmer and slimmer, he had to stay loyal to his king.

Cassandra nodded, then she looked up like a realisation had just come to her, "Can you buy me some strawberry shortbread from WakeyCakey on your way there? I'm craving some fresh pastries and theirs are the best."

"Sure," Wakey Cakey wasn't really on his way to the lake, but he always brought something back for Cass, only to remind himself after a depressing visit that they were  _alive_ people waiting for him. "How many do you want?"

"Six? I'll store them, you can even come for tea on Saturday if you want." Cassandra proposed.

The pastries from Wakey Cakey were awfully expensive, six fresh strawberries shortbreads would be way off the monthly budget Cassandra planned for herself, but Merlin had never cared to tell her how truly expensive it was and he never would. He had amassed enough money in his centuries of life to offer his friend some buttery goodness.

"If you change my cuppa for one of your Martinis, you have a deal." He replied with a smile.

This was why he left Bristol on an early Thursday night to take a train to Glastonbury, buy some strawberry shortbreads before leaving this very mortal concept of transport behind and magically teleporting close to Glastonbury Tor where the tower that Merlin saw as Arthur's grave welcomed him again.

A long time ago, teleporting from one place to another would have left him drained out of magic, but he was more powerful now, centuries of training would do that to anyone. That's why he summoned a cup of tea, warm this time, filled to the brim, a jar of Jammie Dodgers and a blanket he would use to lie on the grass from his own flat without even blinking. He didn't think much of the rush of power he felt at his fingertips, he had sensed a shift in the magical force recently, which more than certainly was caused by the return of people Merlin tried to keep his distance with. He didn't really notice the movement that started deep in the earth and ended at the tips of his toes, he didn't take the time to inspect the roots of mystical power that kept Glastonbury Tor tall since the beginning of time.

He didn't acknowledge any of it because, after centuries of grief and disappointment, you lose hope, it was just the way of life. Which is why he jumped in the air when a brisk wind hit the back of his neck with intent, which is why he gasped loudly when the water in front of him started boiling and the tour started to tremble.

 _Sé angelcyning alibbend, Emrys, hé hast agaef*._ A voice whispered through the breeze, Merlin had once been able to speak this language like his own tongue, but time had passed and he had lost the need to use written spells and books. But he remembered that word,  _angelcyning_ , and if his memory didn't fool him...

"King," He murmured, and as if his voice was the key to a locked door, the gust of wind became a cyclone and in the middle of it rose a man with the clearest eyes and hair like wheat, the same man he had drawn in his journal for the past two thousand years, the man he had once sworn to protect.

His voice broke as he jumped into the water to rescue the body of his fallen king from certain death by drowning, "Arthur!" He cried out and  _finally_ , his waiting was over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *The king lives, Emrys, he has returned. (In what Google tells me is Old English)


	2. Chapter 2

Actually getting Arthur's limp body back to the safe shores of the lake was far more difficult than what Merlin had built in his imagination. Merlin never expected Arthur to come back to life still dressed in his chain mail and armour, in his dreams, Arthur reappeared secure and intact on the ground, and his clothes were nor wet nor as heavy as two full-grown dragons. Merlin also never expected Arthur's armour to have rusted, in his mind Avalon was so magical that something as mundane as corrosion couldn't have existed, but here was the proof of its presence. A thick coat of red and brown paste covered the entire surface of Arthur's cuirass and plackart, making his listless body stiff in ways it shouldn't have been.

"C'mon," groaned Merlin as he lifted Arthur's head out of the water, "I did this once, I can do it again."

He was suddenly reminded of Sophia of Tír-Mòr and what she had been ready to accomplish to find immortality, the memory of her screams as he killed her father and the weight of the lethal Sidhe's weapon in his hands unexpectedly made him nauseous. Y _ou have done much worse since then_ , a voice said in his mind, _you have killed a lot more since those first murders, and all of that sorrow, all of that pain, for your king._ He hadn't regretted it back then, he had been too high on adrenaline to care, too worried about Arthur's immerged mouth and nostrils to spare a piece of his mind to his two victims.

Did he regret it now? Now that his waiting was over, that Arthur,  _his king_ , was back to the land of the living, did he regret the horrible decisions he had made to protect the one who was said to be his destiny? The answer, was  _no_ , of course not, he sometimes felt sick at the images of death and blood that corrupted his dreams, but Arthur had always been everything to him, everything that mattered.

He disposed of Arthur's armour as soon as his feet hit the earth, he quickly took off the rusted metal plates that constricted his friend before pressing an ear to Arthur's chest. He was met with the beating of a heart, the soft sound of blood pumping in quivering veins, he was met with life. He would have broken down there and then if he hadn't seen the unconscious shiver Arthur made in his deep slumber. With only a snap of his fingers, and an assure arm around Arthur's waist, he teleported the two of them far away from this godforsaken lake and in the soft comfort of his flat.

They were both drenched in a fetid mix of rotten bread unintelligent walkers threw at the ducks that populated the lake and the rancid alga he had once imagined as Freya's hair. Needless to say, they weren't particularly a sight to see, or to smell, which was why Merlin hastily got rid of his soaked jumper, that restricted his movement far too much and expeditiously went to his room with Arthur's heavy body floating behind him. Magic really was a wonder.

He should have felt bad about using his powers on an unconscious Arthur, and he should also have felt bad that he didn't put more care into Arthur's return. He hadn't yet really looked at the king's face, nor did he really inspect his flesh for leftover wounds. But, Merlin was aware that, if he now stopped to move and settled near Arthur, if he took off the king's wet clothes and saw his ribcage move with every breath, he would fall into a hole of hysteria mixed to happiness.

 _Arthur's alive_ , repeated his mind as he opened his room's wardrobe and took out the clothes he had once bought for his king,  _Arthur is breathing, he's back_. He tried to block his thoughts, he needed to stay as focused as he could be, at least until Arthur was let out of his gross clothes and bundled in a cosy blanket. Merlin quickly took off his king's old, red, linen tunic, that now wasn't really red at all, as well as his breeches. He didn't linger on that particular part of Arthur,  _sure_ , he had seen his friend naked a thousand times when he was his manservant, but times had surely changed since then and nudity wasn't something people saw as an unimportant business anymore. Merlin promptly dressed Arthur in a soft, grey sweatshirt and dark blue pyjamas before wrapping Arthur in his own duvet and placing him carefully on his bed.

Then, and only then, did he let his fear and excitement take over as he examined every centimetre of Arthur's skin. There were no markings on his epidermis as far as Merlin could see, the surface was bare of any wound or bruise, even the few huntings and battle scars Arthur had gained in his youth were gone. He was as good as new, as one of Merlin's earliest drawings in his journal, the one that showed a twenty-year-old Arthur, the one Merlin had met on a sunny day in Camelot and who had tried to rip his head off. The Arthur that was lying on his bed, on the other hand, had the face of a thirty-year-old man, the same face Merlin had let sail to Avalon all these years ago. Arthur was back, in one piece, with all his hair on his head, all his teeth in his mouth and all of Merlin's heart in his hands. He was breathing,  _snoring_ even, and he looked peaceful, Merlin hoped that had been the case for the whole time they had been apart, he truly wished that this entire experience had been like a nap to Arthur, a nap he now had to wake up from.

Merlin would let him sleep a little more though, it was dangerous to wake up someone who had been spelt to sleep, and he wasn't ready to put Arthur in any type of harm, especially now that he had him back. He cast a last glance at his friend before his legs gave out underneath him and he fell to the ground, not physically tired but mentally exhausted. He sobbed, there on the floor, sobbed with relief that crushed his lungs as well as a bittersweet knowledge that, even with Arthur now here with him, nothing would ever be the same.

Merlin grieved a second time for his life that had once been, he grieved and cried in silence, because waking up Arthur with tears and sorrow was not something he would ever forgive himself for.

»»---------««

There was a song, a song that Arthur didn't know, echoing in the deepest parts of his mind, it sounded cheerful, happy, but nothing like he had ever heard before. It wasn't a tune you would hear coming out of a troubadour mouth or an intoner's throat. And there were instruments with that voice, instruments that sounded nothing like the harp or the fiddle. It must have been a song from a far way land, a place where music must have been their pride, but he didn't recognise any accent, nor from Mercia or Elmet, it sounded like a barbaric language, one Arthur couldn't have been familiar of except if he decided to spend the rest of his life in a foreign tavern. He tried to open his eyes, tried to lift his arm or call out for Merlin, maybe his servant would know why such a song was performed in his room.

But his arms felt as stiff as tree branches and his legs were as heavy as mountains, he couldn't move. He started to panic, the song now not reflecting joy, but a deep sense of vulnerability. Why couldn't Arthur open his mouth or even roll on his side? Why was he paralyzed from the tip of his ears to his toes? He tried to scream a second time, but what escaped sounded more like an annoyed moan. Where was Merlin when you needed him? Why couldn't he see that Arthur was in a very uncomfortable position and simply just help him up like he sometimes did.

Suddenly, the image of a weeping Merlin holding his hand came to mind, the memory of his friend's calloused fingers grasping his palm with so much force and despair that it must have not only left a mark on his skin but on his heart too. He also remembered the bone chilling cold that had shaken his very core as Merlin cried, as well as the flaming pain in his left side, the only source of warmth he had felt before darkness had conquered his vision.

Terror now shook his core as he tried a fourth time to move, to run far away from this music that seemed to drain the life out of him. He heaved a few sounds in a vain attempt to be heard and finally he was able to muster enough strength to throw his legs out of the suffocating bed. That, of course, implied that the last of his energy has been wasted on that action and he obviously had not enough vigor to stand or walk, but reason was never something that stopped Arthur, especially when the entire world around him seems threatening.

The music seemed to get louder with every passing second, it was smothering all of Arthur's cries, his lamentations of pain or his angry howls. And now that he was face down on what seemed to be smooth wooden floors, his voice couldn't even echo in the room. He was helpless, and that was far more terrifying than the numerous things he had faced before. He would have rather taken on a griffin right now than being left alone and absolutely confused with no chance to even save himself.

In an act of rage, he smashed his fist on the floor, it was hard enough to leave a trail of blood on his skin and create wood splinters all around his hand. It had also the benefit of making a loud noise that even the music couldn't drown, and as Arthur feels ready to bang his head on the ground with force, the music stopped completely. Arthur would have thanked the gods for such a blessing if the now obvious silence didn't leave place to fear. Someone was here with him, now that was evident. But friend or foe? He couldn't be sure.

He tried to get on his feet, in case the person who apparently brought him there came back with a weapon to end his life, but Arthur couldn't even raise his fingers, his stamina was now truly spent. He would have groaned in exasperation if his vocal chords didn't work against him, but he was still mute, which just added to the disaster of his situation.

The silence was deafening, Arthur could now hear his own breathing and his rapid heartbeat, he could also hear footsteps resounding in the quiet room. Someone was coming, someone was making his way to Arthur and he couldn't even lift himself up in case the intruder was really out there to end his life. He heard the door on his right open in a creaking sound, then a loud gasp echoed in the room and Arthur's fear turned to relieved, playful anger.

"Arthur! What are you doing on the floor?!" Merlin exclaimed, and Arthur really didn't need to see his face to know whose voice this was.

" _Merlin_." He imitated, he always tried to sound bothered by his manservant's antics, but he couldn't control the fondness in his voice. "I fell off the bed, you idiot." He felt hands pick him up and dispose of him gently on the very same bed.

He could see Merlin's face now, could see his familiar pale skin and black hair, but something seemed different, a subtle change that transformed his entire appearance. His blue eyes, usually so bright and clear, looked older, they no longer reflected a warm Summer day, but a hurricane on a rainy afternoon. And his face, who was always so smooth and youthful now was concealed under a dark stubble. He no longer appeared as the man Arthur had once knew.

"Merlin?" He repeated, shocked by the vision in front of him. "What happened to you?"

There was a flash of something in Merlin's eyes, maybe it was sadness, but that didn't stop him from giving Arthur his best smile, the one that didn't really reach the corners of his mouth, the one Arthur would have once truly believed to be joyful but now knew was only a façade. "Nothing happened to me, you clotpole. You're the one I should be asking this to, excepct I know what happened to you, because I know everything about you, as always. Would you like some breakfast?"

Everything was said so quickly that Arthur's head was spinning, "I-I, what?" Merlin looked expectantly at him, "I guess, yes, but wait, where are we and is it even morning?"

"Do you need it to be morning to have breakfast?" Merlin teased.

Arthur frowned, "No, but that doesn't answer my first question. Where are we, Merlin? And what on Earth are you wearing?"

He couldn't recognise any piece of clothing that Merlin sported, there was a loose black tissue around his abdomen that also covered his shoulders and fell almost to his knees, his trousers looked far too tight to be practical and the black tissue almost made a rather poor looking hood in Merlin's back. Worse than all of this, his boots looked nothing like boots, the laces were not made in leather if the white colour told Arthur anything, and a round blazon with red and blue adorned the side of it.

"You're in my home, Arthur." Merlin said slowly, like speed would somehow shock Arthur beyond repair. "And I'm wearing a hoodie, but we'll get into that later, just... give me a minute."

Arthur didn't want to wait a minute, he wanted,  _needed_ answers to his questions, especially when said answers could explain why his manservant looked so worn out, or why his last memory of what happened before he woke up was a crying Merlin holding him. He would have said so, but then Merlin's blue eyes turned to gold and Arthur's words died on his lips.

Merlin moved his hands in quick circular motions before turning to Arthur with a bashful smile on his face. "There, now people will understand you when you speak."

Arthur stared at him, the memory of a confession he had never thought he'd hear turning in his mind like an unstoppable wheel.  _I have magic_ , Merlin had said, tears running down his cheeks, and of course, he hadn't believed it, because how could he? Merlin had never been anything else than his brave, dumb friend, he had never been powerful or lethal by any means. But he was powerful, he was Emrys, he  _is_ Emrys, but more importantly, he was still his friend, and even his foggy mind couldn't keep that certainty away from Arthur.

"What did you just do?" He asked, trying his very best to cover the dread in his voice with confusion. Merlin didn't look convinced though.

"I changed the language we both spoke in actual English, nobody talks in Old Brittonic anymore."

Arthur's eyebrows rose in surprise, "Old Brittonic?  _English_? What are you talking about, Merlin?"

 _"Ic i missest ðu, Arthur."_ Merlin said, looking directly into the other man's eyes. "It might not sound like anything to you anymore, but this is the language we both used to speak. It's also the language you just used before I magically turned your speech into English."

"Then, why did you change it?" Arthur asked, puzzled. "And what did you just say?"

Merlin looked guilty, his fingers were maniacally tying knots into one of the two cords hanging from his  _hoodie_ , he didn't take his eyes off Arthur, as if blinking would make the other man disappear, but he was frowning, and Arthur was surprised with how much he hated that look of pain on Merlin's face.

"Old Brittonic isn't spoken anymore, it evolved while you were gone and became English." Merlin started, "I guess then in two centuries, the language will have changed again."

Arthur stared at him, he hadn't understood a single word that had come out of Merlin's mouth, yet deep inside, he knew Merlin wasn't lying. "What do you mean  _while I was gone_? Have I been asleep for longer than a day?"

Merlin's eyes grew big, almost the sizes of plates, it would have been funny, almost ridiculous, and Arthur would have told him how much that made him look like a bat, if Merlin hadn't exploded in a fit of hysterical giggles. He was holding his stomach as he laughed louder than Arthur had ever heard do before, but it didn't lake Arthur smile, far from it. Merlin's laugh wasn't genuine, nor born out of actual amusement, it was uncontrolled, like the audible manifestation of an ache Merlin hadn't been able to soothe.

"Merlin?" Arthur said, bringing a hand to his friend's shoulder, tender in a way he hadn't been before with his manservant. "Merlin, are you okay?"

Merlin's laugh suddenly died down, his eyes were gleaming with unshed tears and he looked exhausted, like he'd been walking miles in the sand. "I've never been better, Arthur." He said, but it sounded clipped, "You're back, that's all that matters."

"Merlin," Arthur tried again, "What are you hiding from me?"

Merlin smiled again, but it was empty, "I'm not hiding anything, I've tried to tell you, I just don't know how."

"Is it worst then when you confessed you had magic?" Arthur inquired, it was a serious question, but he made it sound light and playful, hoping that his tone would calm Merlin.

It didn't.

"You were dying, back then. Nothing can be worse than that."

Arthur nodded, he remembered that, the pain in his flank, the absolute anguish in Merlin's voice. Yet now, he doesn't feel any sort of discomfort, better than that, apart from the momentary paralysis, he feels great, his body feels younger and stronger than before.

"But you saved me," Arthur says, encouragely, "You took me to Avalon, like you said, and you saved me with your magic. Like you always do."

Now, Merlin looked more than guilty. He seemed ready to rip his own throat out, or strangle himself. "No, god, no." He said as he wiped his hands on his face, "I didn't save you, Arthur, I wasn't able to."

Arthur gaped at him, the wheels in his mind turning before they all settled in place, "Then..."

"Then, you died," Merlin breathed heavily, "You died, in my arms and I did the only thing I could do. I took you to Avalon and lay you to rest with the Sidhe, because Kilgharrah told me you would be back when Albion needs you the most, and here you are, you're really here, alive, breathing..."

"Merlin, slow down." Arthur said, "You're going to suffocate." But it was Arthur's breath who left him briefly as Merlin kneel before him, his knees hitting the floor so harshly that Arthur flinched in pain for him.

"You've been dead for over two thousand years, Arthur." Merlin blurted out. He looked up at Arthur, his blue eyes saying a million things Arthur couldn't understand. "I've been waiting for you for so long."

"Merlin, stand up." Arthur said, uncomfortable with how insane Merlin looked at his feet, "You're acting like a mad man."

But Merlin wouldn't get up, he only bowed his head in a way Arthur had never seen him do before, in a way he had never  _wanted_ him to before. This act of obedience coming from anyone else would have been welcomed, but coming from Merlin? It made Arthur want to scream or throw something to the ground.

"Merlin, stand up." He repeated, he even took his manservant's wrist and pulled him upright, "I never want you to kneel like this for me, not you."

"You died, Arthur, and I couldn't save you." Merlin whispered, "It was my destiny to protect you and I failed."

"No," Arthur said, he didn't know what to do, how to fix this, he didn't even know where he was, but Merlin looked so sad, so tired. "You did everything you could, and I want to thank you for that." He shushed Merlin when he tried to speak again, he also took his hand as he walked to the door of the room. "Now, show me this new world." He smiled and shoved Merlin in front of him, "And don't believe that you're not my manservant anymore, I'm starving and you need to feed me."

"I wouldn't have it any other way." Merlin chuckled behind him, and Arthur couldn't keep at bay the affection he felt. He still wasn't certain of what had happened on the shores of Avalon, and if everything was true, then Arthur had lost far more than a kingdom. But, he wasn't worried, Merlin was by his side, as he was supposed to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Ic i missest ðu, Arthur = I missed you, Arthur*


	3. Chapter 3

"You're telling me," Arthur said, very slowly and with a dubious look, "That the strange, singing coffin warms my soup?"

Merlin sighed an rubbed a hand on his tired face, "Yes, that's exactly what I mean. And it's not a singing coffin, it's a microwave." 

In his over two centuries of life, Merlin had seen some pretty terrible things. He's slain magical beasts, fought witches, warlocks, really drunk druids, nasty humans who believed they had the right to colonise other countries. He's witnessed the black plague, World War I, then World War II, the revival of NSYNC, but nothing had prepared him for the true horror of teaching the twenty-first century to Arthur Pendragon.

Arthur stared at him with his narrowed eyes, "And the giant, magical box keeps the food cold."

"It's a  _fridge_." Merlin stated, "We talked about this, you can't just call things the magical box or the  _rectangular mini shield of death_."

Arthur scoffed, "I'm not calling it a  _phone_ , that's a made up name."

"Everything is a made up name." Merlin added, "You just don't have the authority now to say which made up name is  _king approved_."

Arthur raised one eyebrow and picked up the, now cold, bowl of soup Merlin had made him. "So, if I understand everything you just babbled," He shushed Merlin's offended noise, "My kingdom has fallen, I've been dead for two thousand years, you're somehow immortal and  _electricity_ , whatever that is, is stronger than magic."

"I wouldn't say stronger than magic, just different."

Arthur scratched his chin, "But, most magic users are dead. So, there's more electricity than magic."

"Yes," Merlin answered, "But it isn't because electricity is more powerful or whatnot, it's just that... people were scared of magic, they didn't want to live with it, so they got rid of most warlocks."

Arthur eyed him, he was still sipping his soup, but he looked worried. Merlin didn't pay it any thought, "The world was different after your death, Gwen lifted the ban on magic and made me Court Sorcerer, it was a time of peace for Camelot."

"Then why did your kind disappear?" Arthur asked as he disposed of his bowl. "The druids must have celebrated and made lots of babies in your honour, no?"

Merlin snorted, the memory of a few heavily pregnant druids asking him his blessing for their unborn children came back to mind, "For a while, magic was everywhere, that's true. Gaius and I even established a school for young warlocks." Merlin's smile fell from his lips, "But after Gwen's death," He saw Arthur get tense, "Camelot had no heir, I wasn't there to protect the kingdom and I guess the king just didn't see the appeal of peace and magic."

"He hunted you down?" Arthur whispered, but Merlin shook his head.

"No, not me, I was fairly well hidden and most kings, even the foolish ones, didn't go after me." He tried to look cheerful but it even sounded fake to his ears. "Emrys had quite a reputation."

"Why didn't you go back to Camelot, why didn't you help the other warlocks?" 

Merlin couldn't simply answer the truth, he'd learn the hard way that the truth was never welcomed in those types of conversations. Arthur wouldn't want to hear his miserable excuses,  _I couldn't go back there without you, couldn't go back there with Gwen, Leon and Percival dead._  Merlin did the only thing he was really good at, he lied. 

"I was too far away to come back, I took some druids with me, protected them as I could, but we're not all immortal, I couldn't shelter everyone from death when their time came."

Arthur didn't look convinced, maybe he had learned how to decipher the truth from the lies in his long sleep, or maybe Merlin simply lost his professional touch. "You lost your entire kind?", he asked.

Merlin winced, that was a truth Arthur was just not ready to hear, not when so many things had to be said and explained before that. "Yes," Merlin lied, "I lost my entire kind."

Arthur stared again, his eyes drilling holes into Merlin's forehead. It wasn't really an uncomfortable silence, but there was a lot of things left unsaid, things that Arthur would learn with time.

"You don't seem that troubled, with the whole dead thing." Merlin noticed as he took the dirty bowl from the table and put it in the sink. 

Arthur exhaled loudly, "To be honest, I'm not sure this isn't a curious dream induced by one of Gaius' potion. It just doesn't seem real."

Arthur had a point, this was just too different, too strange to provoke anything but doubt in someone's mind. Merlin sighed, he had known that Arthur's return would be messy in more than one way, how could it not be? With every passing year, the world changed even more and with it, everything that Arthur once knew as familiar, as safe, disappeared into thin air. 

"I'm sorry," Merlin started, "I wish I could tell you this is just an illusion, but I'm telling you the truth, Sire, you've been gone for a long time."

Arthur nodded, he didn't look mad, like Merlin expected, nor sad. There was melancholy in his eyes, but it didn't seem directed at himself. He looked at his shirt, fumbling with the long cotton sleeves that almost covered his hands entirely. That sweatshirt had always been too large for Merlin, he didn't really remember why he had bought it, it was a very basic shirt, with a round collar and no pattern whatsoever. On Merlin, it looked ridiculous, on Arthur, however, it looked royal. Some people were simply blessed with good looks. 

"None of this is your fault, Merlin," Arthur said, he lifted a finger when his friend tried to interrupt him and Merlin kept silent, for once. "You couldn't have saved me. I know you tried and that's enough for me."

"There are things you don't know, Sire," Merlin replied.

Arthur flinched slightly, "Don't call me that." 

It was an unexpected order, Arthur had always liked to see Merlin grovel before him, it had to do with the other man's constant disobedience and Arthur's inflated ego, the two didn't go well together. But now, Arthur looked bothered by the title, like it personally hurt him in a way Merlin couldn't understand. 

"Why not?" Merlin asked. "I remember a time where you slapped me across the head every time I didn't call you  _your Majesty._ "

"Things have changed." Arthur pointed out. "Literally and figuratively."

Merlin snorted, "Even two thousand years in a lake couldn't stop you from being a brat."

Arthur smiled widely, "And two thousand years couldn't make you a good servant." It was almost pleasant, this simplicity, the easiness of falling back into old places. But, it lacked crucial elements, like Camelot, for example. They could never be the same again, they could never go back to their kingdom and continue their lives. Merlin already knew that he was used to it, sometimes he missed Camelot like a lost limb, he would shiver and feel sparks start at the tip of his fingers, little blue bolts of lightning that tried to escape his body to find their lost home.

But for Arthur, for someone who wasn't just the king of Camelot, but also it's soul, how would losing it affect him? How would he survive not only the loss of his wife, his friends but also his legacy? His history? Maybe, just maybe, for people like Arthur, death was a much sweeter end. And if Merlin was completely honest, death had never felt like a punishment, even to him. Immortality, however, felt like an unforgiving cage.

Arthur cleared his throat loudly and Merlin snapped his eyes open, he didn't even remember closing them, but he must have, glaring a little at the blonde man when he continued to slurp his soup with a smirk. "Should I ask you why you suddenly stopped talking, or are you going to lie again?" Camelot's long lost king asked casually as he dunked a piece of bread in the remains of his meal.

Merlin sensed his cheeks heat up and the tip of his ears go red. "I haven't lied to you." He said, but it sounded weak even to his ears and he winced.

Arthur's eyes darkened and his smug expression fell, "Right, like you didn't lie about your magic or all  _my_  accomplishments over ten years of living with each other. You didn't lie then, and you're not lying right now either." He stood up, and Merlin lost his breath.

Arthur had never been taller than him, they used to be the same height, even if people believed that Merlin had longer legs, just because he looked lanky and unsure on his feet. But right now, Merlin felt minuscule, like a puny clay figurine. He stood up as well, in a last attempt to not feel overwhelmed by the storm in Arthur's eyes, but it was hopeless.

"There's something you're not telling me," Arthur said, and it felt like an accusation. "You're hiding something, and I don't know if it's because you're afraid or if it's something else, but I refused to be lied to. Not again."

Merlin gulped, he could feel his powers try to rebel and to spell out the truth with fire or thunder. The part of Merlin's magic, the part who created butterflies and roses out of thin air, this part had always been fond of Arthur. It used to whisper his name in the night and grow fluorescent flowers in his honour. The other part, the part that had been fed with blood, tears and death, the part that had to burn Will's body and hush goodbye to Balinor, that part didn't whisper Arthur's name.

It howled it.

And right now, this part wanted nothing but crawl out of Merlin's body and wrap itself around its king. The truth needed to come out, if he kept it under his skin, it would tear through it. He took a deep breath and ignored the way his lungs pressed harshly against his ribcage. "I didn't want to lie to you." Merlin confessed as he refused to meet Arthur's stare, "But I couldn't tell you how weak I've been."

He didn't let Arthur ask any questions, he simply continued, "I told you that I'm the last of my kind, and for a long time, that was true. Wizards, witches, they didn't survive Camelot's fall." Merlin looked up, staring right into Arthur's eyes. "But, sixteen years ago, something changed. The realm that separated the world of the dead and the living let a soul out of its gates."

Arthur's hand moved towards Merlin's face, but he couldn't accept it, "I knew that, as the last warlock alive, I should have closed the realm and send back whatever had come out of it, but," Merlin took a step backwards and felt his back hit the kitchen counter, he didn't make a sound, he just breathed in sharply, "But, I felt so alone. I was the last one alive, the last one who could feel the Earth's magic and talk to it. And I just couldn't do it anymore, so I let it live, I let  _him_ live."

"Merlin," Arthur murmured, "Who are you talking about?"

The air around them felt so thick, so warm and so sticky, he couldn't breathe. "I let Mordred live," he replied, and he felt his legs give out before his vision went dark.

  »»---------««  

There's something to say about Arthur's reflexes, he might have been dead for two thousand years, but he sure can still react quickly enough to prevent his manservant from face planting directly on the ground. If Merlin was any heavier than maybe Arthur would have fallen with him, he was maybe a great knight, but death would leave any man slightly dizzy. Lucky for the both of them, Merlin had always been as heavy as a twig. 

Arthur carefully lifted his friend up before leaving the tiny kitchen, he tried to place his hands under Merlin in a way that wouldn't leave bruises when he woke up, but he was maybe clenching him too hard or too closely but, he honestly couldn't tell. All that he was sure of was that Merlin felt too light in his arms and that the way his body jolted meant nothing good. Arthur made his way towards a closed door, he didn't know if it was the same room where he'd woken up or if it was a different one, but Merlin seemed so fragile and if he didn't lay him down somewhere, Arthur was going to start shaking too.

Arthur didn't know how to register Merlin's words, he wasn't even sure he understood all of them. It wasn't like Uther Pendragon let him take lessons about magic and its many layers, terms like  _magical realm_  meant nothing to him. Still, if what Merlin said was true, then Mordred, the man who betrayed him and stabbed him, was alive and breathing. And Merlin had let him prosper for sixteen years. 

Maybe a different Arthur would have cared, the one that met Merlin and ridiculed him would have probably raged and broken a piece of furniture. Now, however, he couldn't find it in himself to feel anger or deception. He didn't even want vengeance or a chance to hurt Mordred as much as he hurt him, all that he desired was a bed for his manservant and a jar of mead to drown the taste of fear that lived on his tongue.

He unlocked the door and tried to move Merlin through it but a growl kept him for taking another step. There was a hound sat on a red rug next to a huge white bowl, that Arthur guessed being the bathtub, he wasn't even sure he could call the  _thing_ a hound. It was small and covered in grey curls, it growled like a true hound, but its fur covered his eyes and it looked like the end of a broom. 

"What the hell are you?" Arthur asked as he left the room and went to the other door. The thing followed him and barked, again just like a hound, "Are you a magic brush?" 

The creature trotted next to him and jumped on the bed as soon as Arthur settled Merlin on the mattress. It didn't look threatening, it even licked his manservant's face, so Arthur approached his hand prudently, just in the case the thing decided to nibble on his fingers. The creature smelled his hand cautiously, letting it's, surprisingly soft, fur caress Arthur's palm. Then it licked him and Arthur let a startled puff out. 

"Arthur?" It took the king a few seconds to understand that the creature hadn't spoken to him and that Merlin had simply woken up. "Arthur, are you petting Frank?"

"That  _thing's_ name is Frank?" Arthur said, astonished. "You named your magic broom, Frank?"

Merlin covered his eyes with the back of his hand, somehow sinking into the bed even more. "It's a dog, you arse," he snorted.

Arthur couldn't help the smile that stretched on his face, "That's the ugliest, most itsy-bitsy dog I've ever seen."

Merlin turned his head towards him, "It's a Poodle, fuck off." It was said with such familiarity and ease that Arthur laughed boisterously.

"What on Earth is a Poodle?" He questioned, his hand still stroking the dog's ears, "A type of goblin?"

Merlin sighed, "It's a breed of dog." He was smiling slightly, his left hand was patting the dog's back tenderly, "I found him in a shelter a few years ago, he was the smallest dog they had and I just couldn't leave him there."

The silence between them was comfortable, like the embrace of a warm duvet, it reminded Arthur early mornings in Camelot, with the sun kissing his back and Merlin waking him with the same phrase over and over again. Arthur felt the fear of the unknown he now carried in his bones slowly melt away and drip out of his body. He didn't know why, but this foreign world didn't scare him as long as he coddled his best friend's ugly, broom-like dog. 

"It doesn't matter to me," He started whispering, "That Mordred is still alive, I don't care. I have no kingdom to leave him, no throne to give and no crown to lose. I don't care anymore, Merlin."

His manservant looked at him, his eyes, so clear and blue, glimmering with confusion, "He wouldn't want your kingdom, Arthur. He's a teenager, he only cares about Vine compilations and sugary cereals."

Arthur frowned, "I understood nothing of what you just said."

Merlin smiled softly, "Mordred is not like you, he didn't come back from the dead. He was reborn."

"What's the difference?" Arthur questioned, "Doesn't he remember Camelot? Doesn't he hate us?"

Merlin shook his head, "It's complicated. He's sixteen at the moment, his memories are restored year after year. He doesn't know that he killed you yet, all that he knows is that he was a druid in a past life." 

"But," Arthur thought out loud,"Does that mean he has parents? A family? If he was born again?" 

Merlin nodded, "Yes, and he has a sister. Her name is Cathy, they both come around here almost every Sunday." He caressed Frank's head before continuing, "When Mordred started remembering, he looked for me. He wanted someone who could help him with his magic."

"He found you and you helped him," Arthur concluded, "That's why you thought I would be mad with you for letting him live because you're friendly with him."

Merlin didn't look at him, but Arthur heard him whisper, "He's a child."

"Yes," the king replied, placing a reassuring hand on his friend's shoulder, making him meet his eyes, "And you did the right thing." Merlin blinked, baffled, "He's a child, a child who has a past too heavy to bear, he is no killer. The Mordred that walks this Earth is as innocent as a newborn baby, I would never want to take revenge on a harmless child."

"He killed you, Arthur." Merlin retorted, "I cradled your dead body, Arthur."

Arthur grabbed his friend's cheek, placing his fingers cautiously to keep Merlin in place, but not hard enough to inadvertently hurt him. "But, I'm here, aren't I? I'm back, I'm alive."

"And so is Mordred," Merlin said, his eyes staring right back at his king.

"But this Mordred is a child, Merlin, you said it yourself." Arthur drew back a breath, "Why do you want me so badly to despise you?"

"Because I let you die!" Merlin cried out, standing up abruptly and disrupting the quiet peace they had created for themselves around the snoring dog. "My destiny was to protect you, I was supposed to help you build Albion and all I did was put you in a crummy raft!"

As Merlin heaved angrily, Arthur was hit with a painful, but necessary, truth. In his mind, Merlin had buried him and went back to Camelot with a heavy heart, yes, and surely, his friend must have grieved him for a few months, years if Arthur pushed it. But, Merlin must have lived afterwards, must have laughed and smiled with other people. He must have met a woman and founded a family with her. There was no way, in Arthur's imagination, that bubbly, joyful Merlin stopped living after his death in favour of only surviving until his return. But the truth has been often ugly and Arthur now knew, he hadn't been the only one to die on the shores of Avalon.

"You didn't let me die," He said, he felt weak, sad and overwhelmed with the wave of anguish that Merlin had made his perpetual state. "You tried to save me, you did everything you could, Merlin, even when I doubted you."

"It didn't change anything," His friend continued to yell, "My faith was to keep you safe and I  _failed_."

Arthur stood up as well, he walked towards Merlin wrapped his arms around his friend in what Gwen had taught him was a hug, "You did everything you could." Merlin trembled silently in their stiff embrace and it dawned on Arthur, that his friend, his dearest and most loyal friend had believed himself to blame for his death during two thousand years.

Arthur folded himself over Merlin and held him as closely as he could, letting the man who had sacrificed everything for him shake and shake, and  _shake_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the wait! As I said before, since English is not my first language it can take a lot of time to edit all of this and make it coherent. (Add exams and writer's block and you have a veeeeery long wait).  
> Still, I hope you enjoyed this chapter!


	4. Chapter 4

A thing Merlin didn't consider when he sometimes dreamt about his king's return, was how truly complicated it would be to teach Arthur everything he missed over the last centuries. It was easy to explain how Camelot fell, Arthur was familiar with such politics, but explaining presidency and voting? That was a mess ready to happen. Of course, before that, there was a ton of historical facts to soak up, and Merlin counted on Arthur's general laziness to delay that particular headache. But, as always, Arthur surprised him and the books Merlin had chosen to cover the Middles Ages were devoured in a weekend. Which also meant that Merlin had to go back to work and explain to Cassandra, why he had cancelled their monthly Alcohol and Cheesecake Saturday. 

He also needed new books for Arthur, he had bought a few good ones about Modern History a decade ago, but he couldn't find them for the life of him. Maybe they had been lost in his last move, he could never stay too long in the same place without raising suspicion about his endless youth. He resorted to ordering some on Amazon while kicking himself over the state of local bookshops and his own implication in their downfall, but time was missing and there were only so many Horrible Histories episodes before Arthur got bored out of his mind and asked for something new.

Merlin really needed to get to work, he was already half an hour late and while, yes, he could just teleport over there to win sometime, he also needed to walk Frank before leaving, or the small dog would piss on everything he ever cared about. A part of him said screw that, Frank would make a mess and he'd clean it up with magic when he came back, but he also somehow felt uncomfortable with the idea of using his powers in front of Arthur. He knew Arthur had been nothing else than supporting and open about it since his return, but he couldn't shake off the memory of Arthur's scared eyes as he confessed his true nature out of his head.

Still, he needed to make a decision quickly, or he would miss half of his appointments and he simply couldn't let that happen. Getting a job as a paediatrician hadn't been in Merlin's life plans, it kind of just happened. When he decided to go to university and gain a few degrees it had been more out of boredom than actual hunger for knowledge. Still, it was always quite nice to show off his PhD when he was in the presence of overly arrogant mortals who assumed he was unemployed only because of his raggedy jumpers and ripped jeans, who were not teared up for fashion reasons, but because Merlin had exactly three pairs of jeans and no reasons to buy new ones until those three fell to literal pieces. His job at the hospital was a new development in his life, he'd only been there for a year and it had been a total accident.

A year ago, Merlin had read in the journal that children in England were piling up in hospital waiting rooms and no one truly knew what they were suffering from. It only took Merlin a good look at one of the pictures in the article and the list of symptoms to deduce that some hipster, idiot parents and their friends had refused to vaccinate their children and now they all had measles. Still, he couldn't break into the hospital to cure children, even though he knew what they were suffering from, so he got a job there, by pure luck, then approached the possibility that all these kids had measles with his chief and watched said stupid parents getting shamed for their absolute idiocy.

He hadn't really planned on remaining there, at first, he stayed because the hospital needed as much help as they could get and he would never deny them his assistance when children were involved. Then, he'd slowly got used it, the feeling of being needed, of being part of something bigger than himself, bigger than his grief. He was helping people, on a small scale, but still. And it felt good, it felt like something he should be doing, so he kept doing it, he met Cassandra, they became friends, he became friends with her friends, he got a dog, and suddenly, he was a person again.

He was no longer a ghost nor a memory, nor even the relic of a fallen kingdom. He was a human being again, a breathing man with a life of his own and a past that didn't define him to the rest of the world.

A part of him, the part that had waited for Arthur's return with anticipation, fear and pure adoration was telling him to quit everything, to move out of this town with his king, find an abandoned castle and start all over again, just the two of them. But this part, this messed up, afraid and desperate part of himself was silenced by this other part that, of course, loved Arthur and was happy to see him back, happier than anyone could possibly imagine, but this part had learned to live without a king, to live for itself. And this part didn't want to give up everything it had found in this town, in these times.

Still, the dilemma of Frank's regular walk was still not solved, and it hadn't been solved magically (AH!) while Merlin reminisced over his past and now he was truly late, Frank was still not walked and Arthur was casually flipping through a comic book that Merlin had left on the coffee table. It still made Merlin somehow uncomfortable yet fond to see Arthur in jeans and sportswear, it was almost an unnatural sight, even if it was quite an attractive one. But, that was not a thought Merlin needed to linger on, he took a deep breath and a decision at the same time.

"Arthur?" He called out, putting on his jacket and approaching his king cautiously. "How would you feel about walking through the streets today?"

Arthur looked up, frowning, he closed the comic book and placed it back on the coffee table. "What exactly brought up this idea in your head? I thought you were against me leaving this location," he moved his hands in circular motions, "Before I was entirely ready to meet the real world."

"And I still believe you're not fully prepared for what's outside, but I'm running out of options." Merlin explained, "I have to... be somewhere, quickly, and Frank needs to go on a walk, but I have no time to waste on it and you're the only person here."

Arthur stood up, "Wait, what?"

"I need to go, but Frank needs to also _go_." Merlin tried to clarify.

Arthur didn't seem impressed, "Are you telling me your magical broom dog needs to go piss?"

"And other things," Merlin added while Arthur made a face. "And as I said, I can't go with him today, I need you to do it."

"To do what?" Arthur asked, "Stand next to your dog while it takes a leak?"

Merlin sighed, then he grabbed Frank's leash, "You need to put this on him, it's a harness, you'll figure it out." He paused, then grinned, "It's basically a dog armour, you'll feel right at home with it."

Arthur didn't laugh, but if his smile said anything, he wasn't totally against the idea, "Then what?" He asked, "I take it out and waits until it does its thing?"

"First thing first, he's not an it, he's a he. Respect that." Merlin said while petting the dog who had run when he heard the leash being pulled out. "Then, yeah, basically, you walk with him through the neighbourhood, and when he decides to  _go_ , if it's liquid, then you're lucky, if it's solid," He smiled, the idea of Arthur putting dog shit in a plastic bag was close to hysterical, "Then you need to pick it up with a small bag and throw it away."

"You want me to pick up the broom's faeces? Why?"

To Arthur's defence, it was a logical question for a man of the Middle Ages. Camelot might have been cleaner than other kingdoms, but they all kind of smelled without really noticing it or caring about it, and that had a lot to do with the state of the streets and what people threw there.

"Yes, there's plastic bags attached to his leash, you need to pick up his poo and get rid of it." He quickly added when he saw Arthur open his mouth, "I know it sounds silly, but people care a lot more about hygiene now. You saw a bit about that in the show I put on for you."

"Yes, because faeces in the streets caused diseases, right?" Arthur replied, "I remember. And that show is quite addictive, by the way. The song really stays in your head."

"I know," Merlin said with a smile, "It's a kid's show, but I thought you would enjoy it."

"Are you comparing me to a child?" Arthur demanded, moving closer to Merlin with a faked offended expression, "I could have thrown you to the dungeon for such slander."

"Back in the days,  _yes_ ," Merlin said, "Now you can just pick up my dog's poo."

This teasing they had both established as their routine felt somehow casual and mindless, but also very meaningful in a way. They had laughed back then, of course, they had been friends, but there was always these slight edge to their jokes, they weren't equaled and they could feel it. That, and the fact that Merlin was keeping more than a few secrets, it had put a stain on their relationship. Now, however, they were two men out of their times, equals in every way. And if Merlin still kept a few secrets, they weren't as huge as the one he had kept from Arthur all those years ago. Laughing together now didn't need to be concealed under titles and orders, they could just laugh together and not feel like they were hiding away from the real world where their friendship would be seen as an abnormality.

"I'll pick your broom's faeces." Arthur conceded, amused, "It will probably be a traumatising experience for me and the broom, but I'll do it if you need me to."

"I wouldn't ask you if I had another choice." Merlin admitted, "It's not exactly how I imagined I would introduce you to the outside world, but I really need to go. I'm seriously late now."

"I understand," Arthur said, and it sounded true.

"Alright then, I left you a phone, I already showed you how that works so if you need me" Merlin started, "Call me. If you get lost, or you don't know how to open the flat's door, or really whatever, just call."

"I'll try not too, only because those phone things kind of confuse me, but I promise I won't get lost, or accidentally kill the broom. Don't worry." Arthur declared, when he saw Merlin nod and pick up his keys, he caught his hand before he could leave and asked, "Where are you actually going? You never said."

Merlin blinked, Arthur's hand over his was warm, a little too warm to focus clearly, "I-uh, I have a job."

Arthur looked surprised, "A job? What type of job?"

Merlin stared at Arthur's hand, searching his words through his roaming thoughts, he didn't have the time to entirely explain what being a paediatrician was, but he could make it comprehensible for Arthur. "It's a bit complicated, but-uh, I'm basically a healer, only it's for children."

"A healer?" Arthur looked at him, an emotion passing quickly in his eyes before Merlin could truly analyse it. "That's... good. Really good."

The smile that stretched over Merlin's face was an uncontrollable response, he hastily disguised it as a smirk and got ready to walk through the door, but Arthur stopped him again.

"Merlin?" He interrupted, making the other man turn, his hand on the door handle, "Gaius would be proud." He smiled and waved Merlin goodbye.

The smile that stayed on Merlin's face through the entire way to the hospital was also an uncontrollable response, but he didn't try to hide it this time.

 

»»---------«« 

 

"Now, that's just vile." Arthur sighed as he watched Merlin's magic broom,  _dog_ , let himself go on a flowerbed. "You could have moved slightly to the right. It would have made a world of a difference."

The creature yapped happily and Arthur stopped himself from entering an argument about the respect of potted plants with an animal. He wondered a little if he looked normal or at least as he belonged in Merlin's neighbourhood. He was wearing the confusing yet comfortable clothes Merlin had given him when he woke up, well, not exactly the same, because that would have been disgusting seeing how he wore those for three days straight, but the same type. The only visible difference in his outfit was the colour of the portable cape ( _Hoodie_ , Merlin whispered in his mind.). The first one had been dark grey, and a bit too small if he was being honest, this one fitted him perfectly and was also a deep crimson colour. While, yes, it had only been a minimal change, wearing his family's colour made Arthur feel inexplicably safe. It wasn't an armour and it didn't feel like one, it was too soft and light against his skin to come close to the unforgettable discomfort of chainmail, but it was so incredibly _him_  that Arthur couldn't help but feel like this particular piece of clothing had been purchased with him in mind. 

Clothes in this century were much more important than they had been back in Camelot.  _They're statements_ , had explained Merlin,  _people dress in a certain way because that's what they want or feel like_. Merlin had also warned Arthur that people now did remarkable things to their hair and bodies and that it was impolite to stare. He tried not to, as he walked Frank, he only glanced at the young woman with green hair passing by and congratulated himself from not gasping as he saw her bare navel. Merlin had clarified while they were both watching an episode of that kid show with the catchy song that women now had the right to dress however they wanted, that trousers were not only for women in battle and that they also could expose as much of their skin as they wanted to.  _Except if they're naked_ , Merlin had added, _that's still illegal in public. But please, don't have a heart attack if you see a naked collarbone_. Arthur wasn't actually so shocked, he'd seen navels before in his life, thank you very much, but it was a change from what he was used to. But, contrary to popular beliefs, princesses, kings and other nobles were the only one so opposed to nudity. They just  _had_ to be, that was what the etiquette asked of them, but nudity wasn't seen as reprehensible for the common people and women with bare collarbones had roamed the streets long before Arthur had been king. No one had ever questioned it either, nobles were the only ones concerned with such issues and that was it. Gwen, as a maid, could have paraded downtown with her breast exposed with only minor reactions from the rest of the people, the court would have been appalled, but they had always been the only ones covering themselves from head to toe.

At the thought of Guinevere, Arthur's mood suddenly soured. It was easy to forget everything he had lost in the comfort of Merlin's home, buried under piles of books, blankets and hot beverages. But here, in the streets where people talked and walked hand in hand, he could only think of his wife. He wondered how Gwen had grieved him, how her life had changed after his passing. From the little Merlin had told him, she had been a fair a progressive ruler, his words not Arthur's, but that only informed Arthur's about the queen's life, not the  _woman_ 's. He was certain, in a way that made his heart ache, that Guinevere had mourned him with dignity in the public eye, and with wretched sobs in the privacy of their bedroom,  _her_ bedroom. He thought of her slowly ageing, alone on the throne with no heir to bear a part of her duties and soothe some of her wounds. He imagined her with white hair and wrinkles, embracing Merlin tightly as they both cried on the anniversary of his death. He thought of Guinevere getting older, but even more beautiful with age, he thought of the time passing and slowly but surely mending her broken heart until she was whole and happy again. 

He thought of Merlin too, unchanged, stuck in perpetual youth while everyone he cared about died around him. He saw with almost painful clarity the image of Merlin, kneeling next to a warlock's deathbed, one he had known as a child before time had done its work. the idea of Merlin, immortal, but not invincible, witnessing the fall of his kingdom, his kind and his friends was more painful to Arthur than Gwen's probable tears.

And what did that say about him? As a husband, as a man and as a  _king_? 

He was torn away from his questionings by Frank's soft barks, the dog was waiting for him and Arthur only now noticed how he had stopped in his tracks while thinking about his manservant. He started walking, matching the dog's pace quite easily while trying, in vain, to keep his subconscious away from Merlin. This wasn't new, this absolute loss of sense every time his friend was involved in something dangerous, stupid or simply interesting. Arthur remembered with accuracy how concerned he had been after Merlin had drunk from that poisoned cup; they had only known each other for a few weeks before the incident and while he could fake quite well his lack of affection and sympathy for the man on a regular basis, he hadn't been able to silence it when he saw Merlin fall on the ground that day. 

Many times he had been worried for Merlin on a level that wasn't usual for people of his stature, princes didn't call their servants their best friends, kings didn't read their servants' speeches at important banquets because they trusted their manservants more than their advisers. Arthur had always been too fond of Merlin, too caring and while he could overlook it when he was king and the castle was big enough for Arthur to hide when Merlin's simple words made him  _stutter_ , he now had nowhere to run to when that happened. They lived together in an enjoyable but  _small_ flat and Arthur wasn't prepared for anything more elaborate than walking the dog a few blocks. 

"Excuse me?" Someone called behind Arthur. The king turned around to come face to face with a young woman with no green hair, but with a pierced lip, "You dropped this." She said and Arthur recognised the phone Merlin had gifted him.

"Oh!" He exclaimed, picking up the phone from the woman's open hand, "Thank you very much, losing it would have been terribly troublesome."

She smiled and Arthur immediately found her friendly, "You're welcome," She said, then added, "That's a really cute dog, what's his name?"

"Frank," Arthur replied, looking at the creature with bewilderment. Cute was not a word he would use to describe Merlin's loud Poodle.

"That's an odd name for a dog," another woman said as she walked to wrap an arm around the waist of the one already facing Arthur. 

"I didn't choose it." He explained while keeping an eye on the new addition to the conversation.

"We've been thinking of getting a dog for a while," The first woman explained. "Charlotte likes big dogs, but our landlord only accepts dogs of smaller sizes so I've been pestering her for a Poodle like yours."

"It isn't mine." Arthur felt like clearing up, "It's my..." What could he call Merlin? His  _friend_  didn't feel like a good enough explanation of their relationship,  _servant_  was not a word you threw around so easily these days and the only thing close enough to the truth was a word Merlin had used as a joke. "It's my roommate's." He finally said, and mentally kicked himself for sounding so unsure.

"And you're walking it for him," Charlotte said with an impressed whistle, "If all my roommates had been that cool, I would still live in a dorm."

The other girl looked up with a forged offended expression on her face, "Now that's just mean for your current roommate."

Charlotte snorted, "You're my  _fiancée_ , Lily, not my roommate."

It had been said so easily and with so much love that Arthur suddenly felt extremely uncomfortable. This wasn't a discussion Merlin had felt like starting with Arthur, and Arthur hadn't pushed it because he now had a phone connected to the internet, and what a creation that was, that could tell him everything he needed to know about a few subjects Merlin didn't openly talk about. It wasn't like Arthur had looked up  _homosexual relationships_  on his phone, he wouldn't have even known where to look and what to search for, but he had stumbled on an article about same-sex marriage in Australia while looking up where exactly  _was_ Australia. He wasn't actually shocked, and maybe that's what had stopped Merlin from talking about it, the thought of Arthur being against it. But he wasn't, he had known good men, good knights who preferred the company of other brother-in-arms to the one of young ladies. He would need to ask Merlin about it, not because he wanted to embarrass his manservant, but because there was still some things Arthur was too old to understand. Especially in that field of expertise where many things had changed and facts had evolved. 

Still, he couldn't possibly ask anything to these two young women without either sounding idiotic or rude. He waved them goodbye and strolled back to Merlin's home with Frank following him closely. It took him a few tries before he found the good building, then it took him a few more tries before he understood how the moving bow, the _elevator_ , functioned. When he walked back into the flat, he quickly freed the dog from his leash and threw himself on the sofa, getting his phone out of his pocket and checking if Merlin had tried to contact him.

There was only one message, a simple thank you that could either be for walking the dog or for their morning conversation, if not for both. But the uncertain feel of the words didn't bother Arthur, on the contrary, it woke up something within him he had tried to forget and bury years before his death. The feeling he now experienced deep in his guts was the same one he had tried to annihilate when he married Guinevere. This well-known sensation in him was nothing else than love, and while, yes, he had loved Guinevere with one of the purest forms of adoration one could give, he could no longer ignore the fact that what he felt for Merlin was another, much more devouring form of that.

He read the message again and send back  _you're welcome_. It wasn't what he felt, but he had hidden his own feelings for years and if Merlin was so distressed by the mere prospect of talking about such relationships with Arthur, then the king would never force his own affection onto his manservant. He would rather die...

Again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi there! Sorry again for the long wait, but I hope you enjoyed this chapter because I had a lot of fun writing it. I want to thank UnicornPower1 for her advice on the last chapter, grammarly did help and I hope most of my typos and mistakes have been corrected. (If any of you see something wrong, just let me know!).
> 
> Have a nice day! I'll see you next chapter :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaaaaaaaaaah so sorry for the wait, i struggled with arthur's point of view (and i'm still not entirely satisfied with it) but i hope you'll still enjoy this chapter!  
> also, i might take some time to update chapter 6 (again, i know, i'm terrible) but i'm extremely inspired for another story (for the dirk gently holistic detective agency fandom) and i might not update until i run out of inspiration! but fear not, i won't abandon this story, i love my medieval gays too much

As expected, when Merlin arrived to the hospital after canceling his weekend plans with Cassandra, the woman practically jumped on him to interrogate the life out of him. She wasn't upset, which was what Merlin had feared the most, however, she was incredibly curious as to what could have possibly come between them and their Martini Saturday. And that was also something Merlin had tried to avoid by not replying to her many texts, there was no way to explain what had happened during the weekend without sounding like an absolute nutjob. There was also no course of action where he truly disclosed all of his secrets to Cassandra, he did trust her, that was not the question, but it was still quite dangerous for an orderly human to know the existence of magic and he would never risk her safety if he had a word to say about it.

"You can possibly think that I'm going to believe you." Cass laughed as Merlin tried to come up with a sob story about late night work and taxes to look at. "You never work on the weekends, and even if ou did, I'm pretty sure you've already finished all of this month's work _and_ your taxes early. I know you." She finished, with a sly smile. "Now spill."

She did know him, he thought, she would never know all of him, but she knew more than most, more than even the people he had once called friends and who were now long gone. She knew what his favourite type of ice cream was, she knew what type of book he read on Friday nights and what films were sure to make him cry. She knew his lunch order and how he took his tea, she even knew his phone code, but she only knew what he had been comfortable to show her. She knew Merlin Emrys, a young bloke who had an ugly dog named Frank, who was around twenty-six years old and who had a Doctor Who keychain. And yes, in a way, she knew him from the very tip of his nose to the nip of his toes, but that man, the one who shared early morning with her and made jokes about reruns of EastEnders was not all that he was. That part belonged to Camelot, belonged to Arthur.

A few days ago, that very thought would have sent him into a dreary state, but now, he was hopeful, one could even say happy. She must have seen that euphoric look in his eyes, that was the only explanation for her first assumption. "Oh my god, you got laid."

He almost spit out his tea and burned the roof of his mouth when he swallowed it back forcefully. He threw an embarrassed look to the young receptionist who had just entered the room to get a piece of toast and stared at Cassandra, "Are you out of your mind? Do you want to inform the entire hospital of my sex life?"

"So you did have sex!" She exclaimed, almost jumping up and down in excitement, it was as adorable as annoying. "I knew it! You were far too giddy for a Monday morning."

"I did not have sex." Merlin whispered as he rolled his eyes, "Can't I just be happy because it isn't raining and no one puked on me yet?"

"Nope, you're usually dark and gloomy up until lunch time, something happened this weekend, I know it." She took a bite of his bagel and trotted away briskly.

Merlin watched her leave with a small smile, she was an absolute headache in every sense of term, but she did make his days far more entertaining. He felt his phone vibrate slightly and grabbed it, it was another message from Arthur, informing him that they were running out of milk and that Frank had barfed on the carpet. It wasn't written in those exact words, Arthur still had a bit of trouble with the small virtual keyboard of his phone and he didn't know how to put spaces between each words, but the idea was there and Merlin was suddenly paralyzed with the realisation that all of this was real. It was easy to forget, in the security of his own home that the world ha changed, that this world had never been made for neither he or Arthur. He could fake it quite well, he'd evolved with the universe, but Arthur was new to this. He was new to phones, to fridges and toothpaste, he didn't know what cars were, how to turn on a stove or even how zippers functioned. But he was real, he was alive and walking Merlin's dog, he was sending texts and reviewing Horrible Histories episodes like it was _normal_. Merlin wasn't sure if Arthur hadn't totally registered how wrong all of this was, how totally abnormal the situation was, or if his rebirth had somehow been a packaged deal with effortless acceptance. Still, even if Merlin was kind of freaking out, Arthur had texted him and he would reply, even if his fingers were shaking severely and he was pretty much having a panic attack in the break room. He sent back a pleasantry and the promise that he would take care of both the milk and Frank's horrid stomach fluids. Arthur answered in the minute with a thank you, it made Merlin's head spin.

"Merlin? You have a mother and her son in the examination room." A nurse said behind him, he thanked her, than took a long breath to calm his rapid heart.

Everything was going to be fine, whatever they had to face in the future, whatever was to happen, they would be together to fight it. He still wasn't sure why Arthur had been brought back now, what danger threatened Albion so closely that it needed the Once and Future King to defend it, but Merlin would be there too, just no longer in the shadows, but facing the light by Arthur's side.

With that thought, he entered the examination room, his heart was lighter and he smiled kindly at the child sat on the table, a toddler with black hair, brown eyes and dark skin who grinned right back at him. Merlin approached near the mother, who was too busy trying to find what Merlin assumed where vaccination papers in her bag to look back at him.

"I'm sorry," She said, her voice sounded weirdly familiar but Marlin paid it no mind, "I'm certain I've put the forms in my purse, but I'm so clumsy."

"It's okay," Merlin replied as he walked to the boy and shook his small fist in a formal handshake that made the toddler laugh. "What's this little fellow's name?"

The woman finally looked back at him, "His name is Tristan," She smiled and thrust her papers in Merlin's open hands. He stared back at her, shaken to his very core, his hands trembling again and his heart beating so quickly that it could have given out at any point. She looked so young, so happy and free. And her son looked so similar, her voice was the same, she was there, standing before him but unable to recognise him.

Merlin didn't examine her son, he called a nurse, faked an emergency and ran out of the hospital. He ran as fast as he could, ran far away from this face he knew and back to Arthur.

 

 »»---------««   

 

To Arthur's surprise, most of the inventions and traditions of the twenty-first century were not as incomprehensible to him as he would have imagined when Merlin started explaining all of the changes and evolutions of this new world. He still felt totally out of his debt and had no idea how most people lived their lives with so many things to think about, such as biles, phones, emails, he'd listened intensely when Merlin had explained, and he somehow got the gist of it, but it was a bit like understanding a sentence spoken in a foreign language, not because you spoke said language but because someone translated basic words to you and let you piece them all together. Still, he wasn't as lost as he had thought, the only thing that truly disoriented him were fridges.

Merlin had told him many times how it worked and why people used fridges in the first place, but he still felt like it made no sense. How come did it stay so cold? And who had thought of it first? And, most importantly, did the light in the fridge turn off when he closed it? Why was there a light in the fridge? And why did people put meat in the fridge when you could just put them in salt and keep them in a barrel.

He knew, because Merlin had spelt it out for him many times, that it was more _hygienic_ , safer and blah blah blah, but salted meat had never killed anyone in court, and they all were pretty fit back then. Merlin had also explained that he had only ever been served the best of the best because he was the prince, then the king and he hadn't been in the streets when butchers sold the heart and intestines of pigs next to people who drew their dirtied water right next to them, or worse.

He wondered a little if those stories of rotten chicken were the reason why Merlin barely had any meat in his own fridge or if there was something else, he heard his friend mutter that explaining  vegetarianism to a king of the Middle Ages was not something his nerves were ready for, but Arthur hadn't understood any of it and he hadn't thought of searching that word on Merlin's computer.

He really loved the computer, it was basically magical, even though Merlin said that it wasn't and that the internet wasn't as nearly as powerful as regular magic, with something like jealousy laced in his voice, but Arthur loved it all the same. He could type any word on it and the screen would show him information, pictures and videos about it. Typing at been difficult at first, and Merlin laughed every time Arthur started writing because he apparently used the keyboard like a "technophobic housewife" but now he pretty much had the hang of it, and he spent most of his time on the computer, either watching videos of people fencing, or pictures of dogs. He also really liked the movies he could watch on it, Merlin had shown him a weird site with a gigantic red N that had thousand of stuff to pass the time with, like that really strange show with a man who changed faces and travelled in a box.

But most of the time, when Arthur had to keep himself busy, he just explored the flat. It made Merlin slightly nervous, he had noticed, because they were always in each other's space and maybe, back a time where the boundaries of their friendship weren't so hazy, it wouldn't have felt like an invitation, but right now, it did. Still, he was far too curious to stay immobile and there were many things to discover, Merlin had kept a lot of objects from his past lives, trinkets of different provenances, books that he'd kept, meaning stolen, from unfamiliar palaces. Arthur enjoyed losing himself in those images and memoirs, it felt like a door to another universe, a universe that belonged to Merlin and Merlin alone.

Sometimes that particular thought made him sad, in all of Merlin's memories, there was no trace of another person, no pictures of a loved one, nothing. From what he had gathered, apart from that ugly dog, Merlin hadn't shared his life with anyone else since leaving Camelot. Arthur wasn't sure why, but knowing this made his heart clench in his chest and his stomach twist into an uncomfortable knot. He was selfish in a terrible way, he liked knowing that Merlin had waited for him, had kept his memory alive and that he had never been truly forgotten, even in death. It was an awful satisfaction, because he knew that Merlin had been incredibly lonely during these past centuries, but he couldn't help it.

Maybe he wasn't as good and righteous as Merlin believed him to be.

His self-introspection was suddenly stopped in its tracks as a thick journal fell off the shelves he was exploring just a second ago. It had been hidden behind multiple bottles filled with colourful liquids that Arthur had had the misfortune of smelling. It was made of red leather and golden thread had been tied around it, unmistakably by Merlin himself. It took only a few seconds for Arthur to set his mind on returning the book to its place without snooping, it took even less to totally break his promise and opened the book hastily.

He recognised the handwriting instantly, for someone who seemed so agitated, Merlin had a beautiful scrawl, it was all cursive letters and gentle lines. Arthur had become familiar with Merlin's calligraphed _e_ when his friend had started writing his speech, he hadn't really believed it back then, that the well thought and developed declamation that had appeared on his desk a few hours before his meeting with his father and his council had been written by a manservant. Most of the servants couldn't read nor write, and they could certainly not create something as advanced, but he'd seen Merlin write afterwards and the handwritings had matched.

It's what had made Arthur easily become fond of that wreck of a servant with a smile too wide and ideas too big for his status, this peculiarity, those secrets. Now, he hadn't imagined how colossal those secrets would be, but he knew they were there, that they were lurking behind those blue eyes that held so many questions and so little answers.

Maybe he'd find answers in this book, which revealed itself to be more of a diary than anything else. It started with a dry flower pressed between the pages, a dwarf cornel, a flower that they could find around Camelot back that time. Arthur remembered that Merlin liked to pick them for Gwen when they had started to become friends, he had watched from afar how their friendship had bloomed. He would never tell Merlin, but before his friend had entered his life, Guinevere hadn't caught his eye.

She had always been beautiful, and he had noticed it but like you'd notice the beauty of a landscape, he had kept it at the back of his mind with little to no care. But then, when she became friends with Merlin, she had started to laugh more, smile and hum under her breath when she walked in the corridors. He also discovered, behind her good-looks, that she was funny and determined, she was also kind in the simplest way, most servants, they forced themselves to smile and chat with, but Gwen was naturally good and that's really what had made him fall in love.

Behind the dwarf cornel, that made his heart constrict with memories of his wife, Merlin had written only a few words.

" _I left her, I didn't really want to. But seeing her age makes me physically sick, witnessing their mortality while I stay the same is killing me softly. But never enough, not in the way it matters._

 _It's been years now, I still miss you. I don't think I'll ever stop._ "

It didn’t take a genius to understand who Merlin was referencing, it was rather obvious now that this diary had been hidden from Arthur’s view because it contained Merlin’s emotions and thoughts in their rawest form, no artifices, no lies, it was the truth and nothing but the truth revealed to Arthur’s eyes through centuries of note keeping. A part of him rejoiced in his discovery, maybe this book would uncover the last secrets Merlin kept from him, maybe they could finally stand as equals, as two men and just that. Two men, and not a king and his servant, two men, and not a king and the most powerful warlock alive.

But another part of him, the strongest part, screamed that this side of Merlin didn’t belong to him and he couldn’t take it. It had to be given freely, Merlin had to trust him truly for them to peers, he had to allow Arthur to simply try to unlock the last doors to his soul, he needed to be the one to do this. It had to be Merlin’s choice first and foremost, it couldn’t be a decision torn away from him.

Arthur closed the diary, he tied back the golden straps around the journal and placed it back in Merlin’s shelf. He was careful to not spill any of Merlin’s concoctions over, and he arranged the few trinkets that hide the book in the exact same manner Merlin had done.

Was it deceitful of him to cover his tracks? He hadn’t read more than a few sentences from this diary, but he now knew of his existence, he was aware of its presence and that in itself was betrayal. Would it be better to tell Merlin that he had found out of this? That he had invaded Merlin’s privacy once more? Maybe it would be, maybe he could be frank about it, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to face the sure disappointment and sadness in his friend’s eyes.

No, he wouldn’t say a thing, this would be his own secret.

As to prevent another mistake, Arthur decided to simply sit back on the couch, the dog was sleeping on one of the pillows and, in a moment of unusual tenderness, Arthur started petting it, him, whatever. He was truly an ugly beast, from closer Arthur could observe how assymetrical his face was, how the fur on his back didn’t seem to match the one on his front and how he snored loudly. It was adorable in the strangest way possible. And, weirder even, this dog fit Merlin perfectly, by that Arthur did not meant that his friend was himself asymmetrical at all, but it was just… such a Merlin thing to adopt a grotesque looking pet and to give it a person’s name.

“You’re lucky he’s so odd,” Arthur whispered to the dog, “I don’t know who else on this face of the Earth would have wanted a hound with so little allure.” The dog kept on snoring and it must have said something about Arthur that he still kept on talking to him. “I mean, you can’t even protect his home, I saw you walk, you sway on your feet.” He scratched behind Frank’s left ear, “And when you bark, you sound like a baby fawn.”

Was it normal for a dog to fart? He’d have to ask Merlin when he came home. “You’re a ridiculous animal, Frank, but I’m glad you took care of your master while I was gone.” And he meant it, the dog might have been the strangest looking creature Arthur had ever seen, but Merlin seemed incredibly fond of it and that fondness had made his friend carry on, it was easy to forget yourself when you lived alone, it was increasingly harder when a small beast depended on you to live. Frank was maybe an ugly dog, but he was Merlin’s ugly dog and that in itself made Arthur care for him far more than he should.

They stayed like this for a couple more minutes, the dog farting and sleeping, and Arthur talking to it like an actual person. Then, Arthur heard what had now become the familiar sound of keys turning in the door’s lock and he stood up exactly like the dog, who was now fully awake.

It was Merlin, but it made no sense, he had told him this morning that he’d probably be home late, this was early, even he knew that.

“Merlin? Were you not supposed to come home late?” At the word home, Merlin froze, he looked disturbed, his hair was messier than usual, like he had ran his hands in it and his eyes were glowing like pools of bronze.

“I-uh, I finished early.” Something was wrong, Arthur felt it in the way his friend’s  fingers trembled when they dropped the keys on the coffee table.

Without really realizing what he was doing, Arthur caught Merlin’s hands in his own, wrapping them both like you would with a child, “Are you okay?” He didn’t know exactly where this came from, this certainty that Merlin wasn’t himself, that he was hurting, but it acted on its own and did what it thought would fix this.

Merlin stared at him, then at their joined hands, he was so pale that Arthur almost thought he could see his veins, “I need to tell you something,” He started, “Something that happened today, at the hospital.”

“Where you work?” Arthur clarified.

Merlin nodded, “Where I work.” He slowly detached their hands and sat on the sofa, Arthur did the same. “I need you to listen to me before you ask questions, I need to say this and I won’t be able to if you interrupt me.”

“I swear,” Arthur reassured, “Just tell me.”

Merlin exhaled sharply, a hand pressed to the bridge of his nose and he looked exhausted when he said, “I saw Guinevere today.”

Arthur didn’t immediately understood those words, it took him a few seconds before he would crap his head around their meaning, but when he did, his head started spinning. He opened his mouth, a thousand of questions on the tip of his tongue before he remembered his promise and closed it.

“She came today with a child, _her_ child.” Merlin said, “She didn’t recognise me, she looked, well, she looked like Gwen, but she didn’t know me.” He breathed out loudly, “She was here with her son, name Tristan Lake, I took her papers with me before leaving.” He took them out of his bag, a beat up leather satchel that looked like it could have belonged to Gaius a long time ago, “I read them and I think you should too.”

He extended them to Arthur, and he wasn’t sure himself who of them both was shaking the most when he took them. It was just a few papers, one that mentioned vaccines, another that mentioned allergies, and the final one, a certificate of birth.

 _Tristan Lake, born the 28th of February of 2016_ , a beautiful boy with big brown eyes that Arthur knew from another life.

“She has a son,” Arthur murmured, he wasn’t sure what he felt at those news. “She’s alive and she has a son.” How was that possible? Guinevere was not a warlock, she was not immortal, she had died centuries ago, Arthur had read it in the books Merlin had given him. She had died with no heir, no husband, no legacy.

But here was her son, her child, it was impossible. It simply was impossible. He told Merlin so and his friend looked at him with something Arthur couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t pity, it was never pity with Merlin, and it wasn’t sadness, it was something more, something with no name.

“She’s not the same Gwen we both knew,” Merlin said, “She’s a new Guinevere, it’s her, but not entirely.”

“Please, stop trying to spare my feelings like you would with a child, Merlin,” Arthur barked, dizzy with incomprehension, “Just tell me what’s the meaning of all this.”

Merlin sighed, “Are you familiar with the concept of reincarnation?”

The answer was yes, in a way, Merlin had explained at his return that, Arthur wasn’t reborn or reincarnate, his body had never soul had never truly died, and his body had simply healed itself while waiting. He was himself entirely, same old body, same old soul, but just mended back together.

“For Guinevere, it’s not the same as you,” Merlin pointed out, “If it had been, she would have remembered me, she didn’t.”

“So what is it?” Arthur asked impatiently, “Magic?”

“In a way,” Merlin conceded, “She was born in this century, and if I’m right, her father must be just like we remember him. Only he’s not a blacksmith anymore, he was born in this century too, and so his her grandfather, and the rest of her family.”

“So she’s Guinevre, but also, not?” That made no sense, Arthur should tell him, “That makes no sense.” There, done.

Merlin smiled a little, “She is Guinevere, she’s just a reincarnation of the one we knew. Deep inside her, she knows us, she remembers us, she just doesn’t know it yet.”

“Like Mordred?”

“No, Mordred is different,” Merlin said, “All magical beings are, Mordred is not like we last left him, he remembers pieces by pieces, when Gwen’s memories come back to her, it will be all of it at once.”

“She has a child,” Arthur repeated, “She has a two year old boy.”

“Yes,” Merlin was the one to take his hand this time, “But you have to understand, she doesn’t remember being your wife. In this version of history, she never knew you.”

“I’m not jealous, Merlin,” Arthur clarified, “I just, I wanted children with her.” He was suddenly so tired, drained of it all, “Not just because I needed a heir, I wanted a family. A family with a loving mother and a father who would listen, a family where brothers and sisters wouldn’t be rivals.”

“I understand,” Merlin said.

“And I’m glad Guinevere, _this_ Guinevere has this.” He wiped his eyes, they were strangely wet, “But to me, everything, the woods, the battle, it was just a month ago.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” Anger unexpectedly filled Arthur, “You’ve had years, decades to get used to the change. I was thrown into this world while still remembering my own so vividly.”

“I’m not the enemy here, Arthur,” Merlin tried, “I lost people too, I lost Camelot too.”

“You didn’t lose a wife,” Arthur spat, and he regretted it the moment it left his mouth.

Merlin didn’t even blink, “No,” He said, voice neutral, “I didn’t.”

This was wrong, all of this, it felt like a big joke. “And what if Gwen remembers me?” Arthur asked, “What if she remembers that she was once a queen and my wife? She has a new life now, full of people I do not know.”

“I wouldn’t be so quick to say that,” Merlin said, he took the boy, Tristan’s, birth certificate and pointed to something on the paper. A name.

 

_Tristan Lake, born the 28th February of 2016. To Mother, Guinevere Jean Smith and father, Lancelot Henry Lake._

 

Arthur was speechless, he couldn’t even seem to breathe properly, but Merlin had a few things to say, “I don’t think Gwen is the only one who has been reincarnated, I don’t even think that it’s just her and Lancelot.” He stood up, “And I don’t think it was a coincidence that she came to my hospital today. I live here for years now, and it’s the first time I meet someone from Camelot, someone that isn’t magical.”

“You think this is destiny?” Arthur asked, “That you met her today?”

“I think your return might have triggered something,” Merlin answered, and it was somehow strange of hearing his manservant, his friend, sound so cryptic and wise. It was difficult to accept that Merlin might still look like a young man, but he’d seen the fall of civilizations. He wasn’t out of time like Arthur, he had mastered it, he’d learned from the world, he’d seen it all and now, he was sure of himself. He wasn’t the same young man Arthur had tried to hit with a macee all of those years ago, he might still look like him, but that Merlin had been buried in Avalon as well. Or maybe he’d been gone for longer and Arthur hadn’t realised, maybe he hadn’t wanted to realise because he would have had to face a truth he was jsut not ready to hear back then.

Now, he was ready.

“What do you think we should do?” He asked Merlin, and he saw the confusion in his friend’s eyes. He had never really requested Merlin’s opinions before, or he hadn’t been so open about it, back then, he would have tried to mask it under some sort of insult.

“Well,” Merlin looked at him, “If your return is the center of it all, I think you’re going to be the one able to give Gwen and the others their memories back.”

“You want me to meet Guinevere.” Arthur translated, “My wife who isn’t my wife anymore and who has a child with Lancelot.”

Merlin swallowed, “Yes.”

Arthur inhaled, then he stood up, his life might have ended abruptly, and maybe he could never put back all of the pieces of himself, but he could try. “What are we waiting for?”

If he could see himself through Guinevere’s eyes, maybe he could become Arthur Pendragon again, maybe he could be brave again. Maybe, just maybe, he could tell Merlin that his last words weren’t the ones Merlin heard.

Maybe he could tell him the truth.


End file.
